


new constellations

by aestheticisms (R_Vienna)



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Bad Future, F/M, black magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4349549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Vienna/pseuds/aestheticisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>perihelion: noun.<br/>definition: the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is closest to the sun.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Owain spends a winter in Plegia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	new constellations

**Author's Note:**

> remember me as i was  
> part 1, part 2 comes out on noire's birthday. (october. ha. ha.)

**_new constellations_ **

 

perihelion

_(the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is closest to the sun.)_

* * *

[part one]

[winter told me to rest my weary bones--]

.

His mother always said he looked best with a smile, so, as he stands before the Ylissean court dressed in Plegian garb, with a tome at his hip and a hand extended out, he thinks, yes, he must smile.

If anything, for the sake of pretending there was any way things could go back to normal.

“My name is Owain, and—“

.

When he decides to take the quest, he really, doesn’t think much of it. He thinks, it’s an opportunity to be with Noire, to protect her, and to be able to get out of a castle that reeks of death and demands his head on a silver platter.

Plegia, or what was left of it, seemed kinder in comparison. His mother was up in arms about it, the whole entire week before he was to leave. She asked him not to go. She demanded that he not go, not when they were so weak. With Lucina working very hard to protect Ylisstol from Risen and from the Grimleal, they needed more people. She didn’t want to see him fight, but if he had to, it would be better if he was close to home. Close to her. His father, resolute as always, simply pursed his lips and pinched the bridge of his nose whenever the subject came up. He wanted the best for his son, but to go against Lissa’s wishes, Lon’qu would sooner have a death wish.

“For a season.” Owain said, burning, insisting, begging.

“Absolutely not.” Lissa replied, with the desperation of a mother who did not want to see her son dead.

“Consider it a job.” Lon’qu sighed, with the determination of a father to see a compromise pull through. “He can take Tharja and Noire out of Plegia.”

He went quiet before continuing. Everyone knew about the condition of the desert’s least favorite witch, she wasn’t doing well in the slightest after her husband’s death on the battlefield.

“Libra would have wanted that.”

“Libra would have wanted to best for all of us, and maybe that means not sending our son out into the fray.”

“Then are we to let them die?”

Owain wasn’t concerned about morality or mortality, he wanted to go and play hero, he knew this now. He knows this now, in front of the small castle passed down from bloody hand to bloody hand within a dynasty of sorcerers.

He bites down on his lip, and adjusts his left hand’s grip on the hilt of his sword. A parting gift from his father.

“You’re here.”

Before he knows it, Noire’s arms are around his neck and she smells like sunshine and magnolias, both things Plegia lacks and he wonders how much of it he’s making up for the sake of storybook fantasy. He buries his face into her neck and she laughs, and gods, she sounds like heaven, too.

“I’m here! Consider me your personal guard, milady.”

And, that’s how things were supposed to be. She giggles, openly, freely, and he doesn’t think he remembers the last time he’s seen her so happy. Being alone in this sea of death wasn’t good for her, so he slips his hand into hers, and they twine their fingers together, and gods, yes, this is where they’re supposed to be.

And it’s fine. He really thinks it will be. The desert is dark, the air is brisk, and he will get them all out of here, and they will be safe.

Safe.

.

And, Owain, really. He meant it.

He really did. He wanted nothing more than her happiness, her happiness was his, and if it meant slaying dragons and plucking stars out of the sky, he would do it. He would do it and more.

Fate had other plans, that was all.

.

He doesn’t like Noire’s mother.

She terrifies him, and it’s a visceral kind of fear that shakes him to the core and advises him to keep his distance. She is eccentric and she is sly, and those are things one should never associate with a witch. Tharja stays close to the shadows, and doesn’t come out of her study, not unless it’s of utmost necessity. And that’s fine, he really prefers it that way. Noire watches him practice stances and cheers at his combination moves outside in the courtyard, and when he’s shifting from a fencing stance to something more accepted in Ferox, Noire gives him pointers.

“Is the lady versed in swordplay as well?”

She flushes.

“Of course not, but…” She points out a flaw, and he fixes it accordingly. He feels more at ease, balanced.

They make a good team. She keeps him grounded and he gives her wings, they only want the best for each other, and it’s a give and take that leaves two parties satisfied, and he tries to think, tries to remember, the last time he’s felt so at ease with himself. With his situation. In the middle of these four concrete walls, brick and plaster and iron, it’s almost as if the world wasn’t ending, and the apocalypse wasn’t always hot on their heels, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

It really is laughable. In the worst kind of way. His knees buckle and he nearly goes down, Noire is there to break the fall, her expression immediately goes from cheerful to worried.

“Is everything okay?” Frantic, even.

“Just a spell, I’m sure it’ll pass soon.”

Owain smiles and he knows, that will be enough.

She helps him sit down, and presses a hand against his forehead. Quick to assess the situation, quick to react. He puts his hand over hers, and leaves it there, and her lips twitch into a pout.

“Listen, Owain, I can’t really help you if you don’t let go of my hand.”

“But I think this is good right here.”

A sigh, full of something he wants to say is a good thing.

“Are you two finished playing? I have a request.”

Tharja, the disgruntled spirit, the perpetual blight on their existence, lingers near the doorway, and Noire makes her disdain obvious. She’s stronger in the company of others. She can stand up to her. Owain sheathes his blade, and lifts his head up towards the witch.

“What does the sorceress of the sand need?”

“A guinea pig.”

Noire nearly flings herself between them, and Owain catches her arm before she can move any further.

.

He goes instead.

.

“It’s a simple spell, really. Scrying, honing. The type that helps you find people.”

He knows the kind, he also knows where this is going, or where it is to go. His mother warned him about her obsession with vengeance. Finding who murdered her husband, yes, he knows the story well. It is a three act tragedy with no resolution and a sudden curtain call.

“I am going to cast it on you.”

He arches a brow, and bows a little. Just a bit.

“If it means protecting Noire.”

“Youth. Bleeding hearts, all of you.”

Tharja passes him a vial, with a mysterious liquid the shade of violence. It’s purple blue and looks awful, to be honest.

“Drink.”

He takes out the cork and chugs it, maybe then he won’t think about the way it gets stuck in his throat, sticks and makes him gag. Yes. He won’t think about it at all.

“Gods, that was brutal.”

“Come check in once every two days. My study, around five.” She leaves him with this awful taste in his mouth and Owain heads to the nearest washroom to scrub his tongue clean.

.

And that’s how his apprenticeship starts. He’s a guinea pig, willing to lay down his life and basic rights to protect Noire’s. That’s how it starts, and that’s how it will end, until he comes across a forgotten tome and presses his fingertips against the cover, and then, splays his hand over the pages. The magic. There’s magic.

And he shuts that goddamn book shut, because the magic, it feels like home, and it fills in the gaps he wasn’t aware were empty in underneath his skin, gods, it feels like home and that’s terrifying. Because, because when Owain carries a sword, it feels like he’s carrying a limb, a broken and disjointed part of himself, that doesn’t quite belong or fit into the hand it is in.

But, when he brushes fingertips down the dark ink, it feels like an extension of his will, and he doesn’t like that, not at fucking all.

His father’s sword is his father’s legacy and he is the Scion of Legend. Nobility did not fight with books.

“You seem interested.”

Tharja’s always there to catch him off guard, he can’t break into a practiced dialogue piece because she takes her book back, and presses it against her chest.

“A _flux_ tome, good for beginners. I’m surprised it incited such…a fascinating reaction from you, though.”

There’s something else in her words, something acidic and cruel. What isn’t, from her.

“I didn’t think Exalted blood carried any kind of sin.”

~~Oh.~~

~~That.~~

~~Didn’t.~~

~~Sound Good, At All.~~

That only left him feeling like someone sucker punched him.

“I’m leaving.”

“Fine."

.

He leaves, only to come back.

Noire grabs his hand, pulls him towards her, and gives him a look that leaves him reeling, one Plegian woman after the other, and he rethinks his stay, and maybe, the winter was too long already, and that the sun was calling for him, begging for his return, maybe, just maybe—

“Owain.”

She is serious, but her hands still shake, but he knows that look. It’s the look of a hunter who’s got their sight on their prey, and knowing archers, knowing people like her—she wasn’t going to budge from this.

“I don’t know what my mother is doing to you, but I know, that I want it to stop. You came here to take us back to Ylisstol, you didn’t come here to be a human pincushion.”

Owain wants to protest but Noire steamrolls over any attempt.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

He puts his hand over hers. Presses down on her knuckles and brings her hand to his lips, he’ll kiss away the slight against her.

“I’ll be fine. I promised, you right?”

“Yes, but…”

“What is it?”

“I don’t like it. I don’t like you using magic.”

Owain leans forward so he can kiss her forehead. Noire sighs.

“Is that selfish?”

“Of course not. I understand.”

And he really does.

Honestly.

It’s not about power, it’s about being able to make the choice to forsake it, for the sake of others. It’s about…it’s about true love, and true power, born out of the determination and will of the hero! Yes. It was about that. It wasn’t about the way that the magic surged through his veins and demanded his attention in a way that swordplay never did.

It wasn’t about that, at all.

.

Tharja is not the best teacher, she hands him books and expects him to understand what the runes say, or what each sigil signifies. She expects him to know the creeds and prayers but Owain is very confused, and very scared of the potential she says he harbors.

“Your blood, it sings in the presence of my books. It’s refreshing, having such a capable pupil. Now, do as I do.”

So, he spends a lot of time mirroring her. Hand movements, wrist flicks, the particular up and down of his breathing—”Don’t exhale so harshly, and may the gods burn you down if I can hear you inhale.”—he tailors himself to the magic that has become second nature.

Noire watches him come and go out of her mother’s study. She strings her bow and can only nod and avert her gaze when he tries to bridge the distance between.

This is their love, now. This is their existence. The castle doubles in size and he sticks to the book-lined walls, and spends mornings in the company of spirits. He names every single one something special, and makes friend with Hamlet and with Othello.

.

“Is there something else I can work with?”

Owain pushes a copy of _ruin_ across the table, and Tharja gives him a quizzical glance, whatever that may be on the face of someone who looked like they were perpetually ill.

“I do have some copies of _nosferatu_ lying about, are you bored?”

He shrugs, and runs a hand through his dark hair, taps his fingertips against the cover.

“Not really, I just want new material.”

She quirks a brow.

“This is my newest attempt at making my own spell. It’s called the _Archangel’s_ _Descent_. Increases luck and skill, it makes for a particularly good tome for landing critical hits. Especially when you do a pose like this one--” He gets up and gets into position, legs parallels and arms raised, and Tharja giggles.

_She_ _giggles_.

And that, that is truly the most terrifying thing he’s ever had the misfortune of hearing. It’s nothing like Noire’s laugh, light and sweet, this is the kind of laughter you hear from an eldritch abomination that planned on using one’s kidneys in ritual sacrifice. He gulps and she wipes a single tear from her eye, careful not to smudge the impeccable paint.

"Were you a part of the circus back in Ylisse, or is this some family curse?"

She can't get the words out without coughing.

"No!" It comes out more offended that he would have liked, but what is a boy to do. "It's a rite of passage, a bridge between the dead and alive--the flood of the river Styx!"

"To think I would find a mage capable of crafting their own spells, and they're making a game out of it."

He feels like a deflated balloon. but he doesn't let that particular defeat show, no, instead he crosses his arms over his chest and juts his chin.

"Have you ever created a spell out of midnight endeavors and the holy sun?"

Tharja gives him a wilting look.

"I am the heir to a bloody throne, lined with the skulls of my ancestors before me. And you have the audacity to ask me if I can partake in such a simple task."

Owain beams in the arrogant sort of way.

"It would do you better, witch of the sand, if you always spoke like that! It fits your trope."

Tharja lets out the most aggravated sigh and he quickly makes his exit before she challenges him to a duel.

.

They're having breakfast outside, it's a particularly miserable day. A storm was sure to pass over their manor at any moment, but Noire, she insisted they move their party onto the entryway steps and Owain watches her unpack confection after pastry after delicacy out of a basket, and lay them out on top of their blanket.

"Is this the _Temple of Austere Majesty_?!" Owain picks up the plate closest to him and shovels shortcake into his mouth. He doesn't notice the way Noire picks at her cuticles or the way she looks at him, with a terribly sad expression, oh, she's yearning and she's longing, eyes downcast and lips parted. No, he doesn't get to see any of this, because when she goes to answer his question, she's smiling.

"Yes, but I was hoping you could name this one."

She fits a small saucer into his hands, a small cake with navy blue fondue and ivory frosting, dotted with tiny stars.

"Well, of course! Let me see, let me see!"

He's a magician, in more ways than one, over pretty words and over ancient script.

"The taste is airy, lighter than feathers. Each bite leaves one wishing for more, sweet yet captivating, pulling one along by a red string. Ah inspiration...! Yes! The lovers in orbit, a starlit galaxy!"

Noire doesn't clap.

She usually does. Owain waits for another second. And another one. When he finally looks at her again, she's crying.

"I'm s-sorry." She hastily wipes her cheeks before Owain can put a hand against her face. "It was beautiful, honestly. Thank you."

He's hurt her.

"Noire..."

Owain leans forward and she leans back.

"Owain." Firmer now. "Why do you practice magic."

Oh. ~~_Oh_~~.

"To become stronger, to protect others--"

"Is that so."

Noire, who is so much more her father with her fair hair and green eyes and freckled skin. Noire with her dark skin and hooded eyes and feral laugh on the battlefield. Noire, who is the girl simultaneously inside and outside. Noire, who looks so much like her mother when she cuts him off with a flat retort.

"Of course."

She keeps her gaze level.

"Listen, Owain. I love you, but..."

He doesn't need to hear the second part. He can't hear the second part over the sound of his heart lurching in his chest, he takes her gloved hand and puts it against his skin and, Noire--No. don't do this to me; to us.

"I can't trust you anymore."

.

"Who am I to you." He's got one hand over the leather bound tome and the other one curled into a fist. At first, the woman does not respond, and finishes up a concoction over a candle. Owain tries again, he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and watches the way the firelight casts shadows over his hands. It’s a foreign look, and before, he would’ve been wary, would’ve been concerned, but now, he feels it suits him better than the sunlight ever did.

“Is the better question, what am i?”

That garners a response. She puts out the candle, the room goes dark. He can’t see anything save for her silhouette, and when he moves to illuminate the room once more, he feels a hand over his wrist. Tharja smirks callously, cruelly. Her lips twitch into something awful and she leans forward over their shared workspace, dark hair cascades down her chest and pools over the ancient script. Her eyes are amethysts, they are jewels and gems and they are striking.

"Would you like to elaborate?"

Owain clenches his teeth. Does he. Does he want to? Say more and ruin whatever fragile compromise they have between them? He swallows back his conscience and opens himself up, drops the book and raises his hands up and out, he wears his performer's mask.

"Who am I replacing?"

She furrows her brow and stands up straight, every move is orchestrated to get a response, he's seen her move like that before. Languid. One position to the next, one hand over her heart, black nails tap against the scraps of fabric covering her chest.

"A lover? The ghost of a forsaken husband?"

Her expression darkens even more and he doesn't like the way she walks away from the table, crosses the distance between them and takes his chin with her claws, she tilts his head up and presses down on his skin until he's sure he'll bruise. Her lips are close to his and the air is filled with incense and electricity and if he moves his hips just like that, they'd--

"Or a daughter who couldn't perform like you wanted her to?"

Tharja is not a pleasant woman. Owain will never be able to associate that word with her.

"What would you like to hear, princeling?" Every word that comes out of her mouth drips with irony. "That you're my pet project, that you're my legacy? That you're the afterimage of a man I loved?"

She sounds disgusted.

"You insult me.”

The lights come back, each candle, each lamp, they all burn.

“As if I would be as base to go after a child." She spits and he tastes her animosity. Her venom and her spite and he thinks himself stupid for ever opening his mouth.

"You're my pupil and apprentice. That was the deal we made." She pushes his face away and he stumbles back, catches himself on a bookshelf, and Tharja turns her back on him.

"You wanted power."

"I wanted the means to protect others."

He presses his fingertips against his cheek and Tharja laughs. He can feel blood.

"Is that really what it is?"

(No. She's right. He came to her asking for a replacement for his tainted birthright. The sword against his bedroom chamber mocks him every day and he wanted an exit. He wanted something more, so much more.

Do dark avengers, forsaken princes, do they really have a stake in the lives of others?)

"Yes."

"Ah, well. If it must be, then." Tharja waves a hand and shrugs on a cloak over her flimsy dress. “Study. Or Die, it really is up to you." Their session is over and she strides towards the stairs out of her workshop.

"May it be the last time you ask me about your place. No one dictates that but yourself."

"Of course."

He is terse and she gives him another one of those smiles. The ones that send shivers down his spine and he's not particularly sure why, why he reacts in the way he does. Instead, he brushes off the Plegian robes that have become part of his sad existence, and returns to the table to pick up his tome.

.

Owain wakes up choking on his own saliva and thrashing about in his bed. He breathes, or tries to perform a mockery of the action, clutching blankets against his bare chest. One. Inhale. Two. Exhale. Cold sweat, dark hair plastered against his forehead, bad eyesight trying to adjust to its surroundings.

First, his sword. Propped up pathetically where it always has been, next to the door frame. It has a talisman tied around the hilt, with crow feathers and moonstones and pieces of amber. A protection spell. Plus six resistance against magic.

He wonders with what the intentions were of the one who made it. She pressed it into his hands with her gloved set and said to keep it close by. And here it was. Collecting dust with a weapon of non choice.

Second, his tomes. Books littered all over the floor, making residence on top of expensive rugs with beautiful colors and patterns, some with bent spines and others with magic just spilling off of the pages, he needs to remember to close them afterwards. With a flick of his wrist, the mysterious black ooze disappears but leaves a bad burn in its wake.

Another spell would reorganize the room if he so wishes, but he really, could care less. Breathing. Normalize.

He sits up straight and runs a hand through his hair and tries to figure out what set him off so badly. He can't remember his nightmare anymore. Just the sensation of hands around his throat. Fine. Okay. He kicks off the sheets and swings his legs over until his feet touch the ground and he really, doesn't want to do anything today. The feeling is in the back of his throat and he's scared he's going to taste black bile, see it on his hands if he presses his finger against his mouth.

"Owain?"

He looks up. How long has the door been open. Noire stands like a reluctant ghost, hands clasped in front of her. She's not wearing her gloves. Half dressed in hunting garb, half dressed in last night's sleepwear. She must've run over at the sound of his screams. Leather boots and dark breeches and a long tunic that slides off her shoulders.

Gods.

She's got that terribly sad face and he wants to get up and caress her cheek but they aren't lovers and they aren't friends. (This was different, this will be different, he wants to protest.)

Instead he smiles for her, as much as he can. she fidgets, as if remembering something.

"Is everything okay? I heard shouting, and thought we were under attack."

"Everything's fine, my fair lady. The wicked wind must have been playing a trick on me while I slept--attempting to catch me off guard and then! strike!"

Noire bites her lip and Owain thinks he might have overdone it.

"Well, I'm glad to hear you're fine." Her eyes move from the floor and to the sword.

"My talisman." She says this softly. reverently. Like she didn't want him to hear.

He really wants to do something but he's still sitting down and the moment is over. She looks at him, with those dark eyes and he wonders how someone so kind and so beautiful and so fragile--(he hates associating the word with her because she only looks the part)--could be born out of a witch.

Her gaze does not waver and he can feel her examining him, evaluating. He wants to say something--join me for breakfast, join me for training, do me the honor of your presence in my bed--but he instead, gets up and lets the remaining sheets fall from his grasp and pool around his hips and takes a step forward. She takes one back.

“Breakfast is ready.” With that she turns on her heel and he watches her go. Again. Again he will, until he wills himself to lift his hand up to her.

He won’t. They both know this.

“See you then, Noire.”

She stops, but only for a moment. It’s enough for him, and then she’s gone and he’s left all by himself. He gets out of bed and he tries to pull himself together, maybe a bath next. Whatever. None of it really, mattered. Winter was ending. Only a week before spring took over and the sun would come back. The cloud cover is thick and cold and the sand is merciless, but the sun would be back. He would have to come to terms with his newfound niche.

Noire and Tharja are not in the dining room when he finally makes his appearance. He’s wearing something typical for the people of this land, arms and hands covered completely and he wonders if the brand, the brand he based his entire life around, is still there, underneath the opaque layers. Layers of gold and violet hide him from the rest of the world.

He eats alone, and he picks up whatever mess he makes, and ends up going outside. It’s still dark, and it’s still awful, and he brushes his hands off on his thighs and points to the sky. Step one, step two, his fingers move in time with a melody he can’t quite decipher, but he’s drowning in the static, the magic fills him and he can only channel it out. It becomes a dance. There’s only electricity now and it consumes him, burns his hands and wrists and it’s creeping up his forearms in slashes and streaks.

By Thor’s holy strike.

He eviscerates a nearby structure.

“Would it kill you to not destroy my property.”

Tharja slinks out of the shadows, she’s carrying books, assorted items in jars, and a candelabra. She gives him a dirty look, but that’s the norm for her, and Owain responds with a mock salute.

“It’s only practice.”

“Practice harder, and away from my plants.”

Tharja goes away, and Owain exaggerates the sigh that follows. Fine, fine. The magic made him feel tingly and it wasn’t unpleasant, per-se. just. It was just different.

It made him feel powerful, and gods, he hates it. He really, really does. Another spell, another twist and turn, he’ll combat these demons in plain daylight (or what passed as such) until he is sure he can control them. He can tame the beast, that’s his entire story arc, it must be as written.

So, he practices.

.

“A letter. For you.”

Noire pushes the envelope across the table, and Owain takes it. She tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, and tilts her head, and he smiles, brilliant, bright, always trying to outdo the last gesture, but it goes unheeded, she focuses her attention on something else.

“It’s from Inigo!”

He can’t help but notice the way her dark, freckled shoulders sag. Everything that came out of his mouth wasn’t right, he messes up time and time again and he doesn’t know how to elicit something positive from her. It was frustrating. ( ~~She was frustrating~~ , their situation was peculiar and precarious.)

His excitement washes away with a very familiar sense of dread.

“He wants us to come home.”

“Oh.”

The promised day.

Neither of them can say anything after that, not when home didn’t have the same meaning. They both look towards the main hallway, where there was a set of doors that lead to a terrifying library, and to the woman they both had ties to.

“My mother won’t go.”

“I know.”

He doesn’t elaborate and she doesn’t continue.

The pause stretches out for eternity and Owain hates it, hates it that who they used to be was lost underneath dusty texts and terrifying magic and the very concept of what it meant to live—what it meant to fight, what it meant to rule.

Everything they could’ve had is laid out in front of them, beads from a broken rosary scattered about. The distance between their seats, across this godforsaken table, is abyssal.

“Noire.”

He reaches his hand out and she doesn’t let him touch her.

She looks at him like she looks at her mother, with that same sort of resentment reserved to traitors of the highest order.

“Don’t.” It’s a plea. “Please, don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

Owain pulls his hand back. It is callused, it is scarred, it is charred black by magic and by time.

“I want to make things better.”

“You can’t.”

She sets her jaw and blinks, once, twice, and he wonders, if she cries, what will he do.

She won’t give him the satisfaction of wiping away her tears, she gets up and leaves him, and then, calls over her shoulder.

“I’m going, when Inigo comes.”

Owain sits alone at the stupid table.

.

“I will not go to Ylisstol. They have me branded as a witch, there. A reputation your mother, of all people, helped cultivate.” She snarls when Owain brings up spring.

“The people, they look at us like dogs, scum. They look at the color of our skin and our weapon of choice, and they say, those are the ones who condemned our Exalt.”

Tharja tilts her head up and gives Owain a feral grin.

“And you wish to lead us into the lion’s den.”

.

The same was said about his trip to Plegia, so, so many months before.

.

And Owain, he can only grin and bear it.

 


End file.
